PriceSmart online sales in Jamaica trending at record levels

PriceSmart Inc, the operator of a membership shopping retail chain across the Americas, announced that its online sales in Jamaica are growing at double-digit levels but said it still accounted for a small portion of total sales.

The Jamaican operation benefited from a continuing trend towards online transactions.

“This contributed to the highest online single month of sales ever in September for Jamaica with orders increasing by 19.6 per cent for the same period,” said PriceSmart CEO Sherry Bahrambeygui in an earnings call.

Jamaica is one of 13 territories in the chain that would have generated about US$40 million in online sales between June and August.

“For the fourth quarter, total e-comm sales represented 3.7 per cent of total merchandise sales. Now mind you, we just started our e-comm in fiscal year 2020 during the pandemic,” said Bahrambeygui. Total sales for the retailer in the fourth quarter were about US$1 billion.

Already “more than half” of PriceSmart’s members are signed up on its website “and that’s up from zero two years ago” she said. The conversion of that number into sales stands at roughly 15 per cent who use the online platform to place orders.

PriceSmart opened its first store in Kingston in 2003. Then in April this year, it opened a second store in Portmore, St Catherine.

For the full year, ending August, Caribbean sales increased by 15 per cent to US$1.1 billion. The segment includes Aruba, Barbados, Dominican Republic , Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, and the US Virgin Islands. The financials did not disaggregate Jamaica’s growth, but the Dominican Republic grew sales by nearly 20 per cent and Trinidad by more than 12 per cent.

PriceSmart, which is headquartered in the United States, operates 50 warehouse clubs in 13 markets. Group sales for the year rose by half-billion to $4.1 billion, while profit increased from US$98 million to US$105 million.

steven.jackson@gleanerjm.com